


lead me home

by devils_trap



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Family Reunions, Gen, M/M, Military, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Pre-Cult/No Cult, y'all i just really want the universe to be SOFT to the seeds ok?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-06 09:49:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14639322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devils_trap/pseuds/devils_trap
Summary: He can still feel the cool metal of the Major's expensive ink pen against the writer's bump on his right middle finger, biting into his calloused digit as he effectively benched himself with a flick of his wrist and the near illegible scrawl of his name, SGT. JACOB ELIJAH SEED. Altering his status from ACTIVE DUTY to INACTIVE DUTY RESERVE.He hates it, doesn't want to remove himself from Active Duty. But if it's this or discharge, Jacob will bite his tongue around the shame until he drowns in his own blood.





	1. Chapter 1

It's this or forced medical discharge.

Honorable, even, but still forced. Scooted out of the only true home he's ever known and left to fend for himself, alone once more. No brothers, no Brothers. No family.

“It's the right thing to do, son,” Major Lewis tells him from behind his desk, hands steepled before the trunk of his flabby body on the desk's flat, shined surface. The collar of his dress uniform is stiff, freshly starched, and rubs irritatingly against the weathered, aged skin of his throat. Jacob keeps his eyes on his collar, on the slope of his hangdog ears, the agitated pink rash on his throat, to avoid the pity in Lewis' own watery blue eyes. Dingy like dishwater, clouded with age.

He knows the man's taking in the silvery scars on Jacob's face, his neck. Can feel his gaze like ants crawling over his skin, carrying their pity to him within their tiny pinchers.

“We don't want to lose a dedicated soldier such as yourself, but I think it's time to step out of the field, don't you?”

He had enlisted before he was even out of juvenile detention. The Judge had eyed him sadly, taken in his casework and Child Protective Services' report on his father's abuse, the scars on his face—not silvery and aged then, but livid and pink and too tight, itchy, _Fresh_. Not inflicted upon him by his Father's hand but by his own. By greedy, hungry sun-baked, rotted wood and too much gasoline. The barn had just burned so _quickly_ and it had been so beautiful, so alluring, that Jacob hadn't been able to tear himself away even with Joseph's distant wailing, John's panicked sobs, _Jake! J-Jake!_ —before agreeing to release him on good behavior if he committed to this course.

And he had committed, body and soul.

Bootcamp in the fall of '89, right after his September 1st eighteenth birthday, and deployment shortly after, overseas for the entirety of the Gulf War—August of '90 to February of '91, Operations Desert Shield and Storm both.

Seven months in hell, boots on the ground in Iraq and Kuwait.

Seven months in hell, surrounded by others like him, by Brothers. Men who watched his back in the scorching Iraqi heat, who laughed and fought and grieved with him. Men whose own blood family wrote him letters and sent him care packages because there was no one at home who'd know or even care if he lived or died, Old Man Seed long dead in prison and Joseph and John both in the wind.

PJ Miller's mother would send him baked goods and CDs and thank you letters for befriending her son, the smell of perfume and love wafting out of the cardboard box on his cot. Jacob's cheeks hot and his eyes wet as he stared down into it, as if waiting for something to pop out and yolk him up by his fatigues. Force him to pay a price for this small kindness.

“Dude, my mom sent you better shit than she sent me,” Miller griping from his own cot to Jacob's left. Aviators pushed up into curly, dirty blonde hair. “How come _you_ get candy and homemade shit, and I get stupid shit like...jerky and socks? What the fuck, Mom!”

Jacob had never looked back, had never _turned_ his back, not on his Brothers, not on the Army. Seven tours in nine years, four of them to active war zones—all entirely voluntary after the first. Wounded three times, critically once, but nothing could keep down Mad Dog Seed, not bullet wounds or shrapnel or impending Doom.

Rising through the ranks with pride, Private then Specialist then Corporal then Sergeant and now, lastly, Staff Sergeant.

Lastly.

Still here he finds himself, his dress uniform tight on his shoulders, his thighs. Hands folded in his lap to keep them idle. Eyes on the Major's throat and not on the load of paperwork Jacob had been forced to sign to keep him in the military but out of combat zones.

Expedited, the Major had said, because they didn't want to lose him and hoped to continue seeing him prosper. Normally it takes four to six months for an applicant to be accepted into Army Recruitment Courses, but Jacob'd be heading off for more training in just two weeks.

He can still feel the cool metal of the Major's expensive ink pen against the writer's bump on his right middle finger, biting into his calloused digit as he effectively benched himself with a flick of his wrist and the near illegible scrawl of his name, SGT. JACOB ELIJAH SEED. Altering his status from ACTIVE DUTY to INACTIVE DUTY RESERVE.

He hates it, doesn't want to remove himself from Active Duty. But if it's this or discharge, Jacob will bite his tongue around the shame until he drowns in his own blood.

Some soldiers dream of gigs like this, the bragging rights of the military but the safety of the homefront. Military discounts and _thank you for your service_ without having to be mindful of enemy fire.

What the fuck is he going to do in fucking _Georgia_? In the past almost decade, Jacob's spent maybe two years stateside. Each time chomping at the bit to go back, to go _away_ , returned to the environment he knows and loves and feels most alive in, surrounded by the only people who understand and care for him.

Does he even know what to do as a civilian? As a Military Recruiter? A dancing circus bear for the United States Army, so far away from were he was supposed to be, _meant_ to be. From where he had planned to spend the rest of his life.

“I will defer to your better judgment, Major.” Polite but firm, Jacob's voice even and almost detached while still managing to be respectful. He can't let this get to him, not in the Major's office. Might lose his cool and start breaking things—plaques and medals of honor Jacob won't have the chance to earn benched on the homefront.

He doesn't think a meltdown would get him a dishonorable, or, hell, even a reprimand, unless he got physically violent. But then Jacob thinks about the piteous looks he'd get and flattens his feet on the ground. Straightens his back, attempting to broadcast self control and submission. “I don't want to leave the Army, so if this is the only way...”

“It's what's best, Jacob.” The Major's shoulders seem to relax a little more, like they had after Jacob had quietly submitted and effectively derailed all of his future plans, easy as you please with just a handful of Jacob's signatures and initials. Cold metal tucked into his hand, the faint smell of ink and the scratch scratch scratch of the pen tip as it glided over paper.

“You've voluntarily done more tours than most of our lifers, and we're afraid you're pushing burnout. If - if this goes well, we'll consider bring you back into the field. You've been through a lot, son. We just want to make sure you're taken care of. This isn't goodbye, this isn't a punishment. We just want what's best.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get some rest, Staff Sergeant Seed. You head out in two weeks. I've also taken the liberty of setting up an appointment for you at the VA.”

“Alright. Thank you, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

-

When Miller finds him, he's sitting in the dark in his living room, still in his dress uniform.

Miller approaches him like he would a beaten, snarling dog. He turns on the lights as he goes, announcing his presence. The sound of his shoes hitting the tile is heavy, louder than Miller would usually allow his footfall, and he casts out a silent apology to the people below Jacob that have to hear him moving around like a buffalo.

Miller's hands are up, palms displayed, in case Jacob snaps out of it and is disoriented, frightened.

He calls out to Jacob a few times, in the doorway and in the kitchen and in the small dining room separating the front door from the main living area, but if Jacob hears him, he doesn't react.

Stays stock still on his uncomfortable, mostly unused couch, his blue eyes far away.

His stillness and the lack of destruction worries Miller more than the unlocked front door. Means that Jacob has stalled out like an overworked engine, emotions not fully processed. Means the bomb of being benched is still ticking down and Miller can't see the clock. Doesn't know how long he has to get in and defuse the situation, or run for cover.

“Hey, hey, Jake. Whatcha doin' in the dark?” Miller asks, voice just loud enough to be heard. He already knows what's happened, scuttlebutt what it is on a military base, but it gives Jacob the chance to relay information on his own schedule. To ease his psyche through a little bit of this traumatic change; to gently, gently wake himself up from this.

He's seen Jacob in the throes of nightmares, woken him up out of more than a few. Taken Jacob's elbow or fist to the face more than once trying to wake him up before he woke up the entire base.

Blood warm and tacky between his fingers, dripping down his t-shirt, as Miller catches his breath on the ground at Jacob's bedside. One hand at a bloodied nose or a busted lip, the other up and held outward, defensive.

Jacob standing over him, chest rising and falling like he's run a marathon. Eyes frantic and still half clouded with sleep, lips frozen on the J of his one of his wayward brothers, the ones he only talks to Miller about when he's piss drunk.

Miller doesn't know if Jacob remembers those conversations. If he remembers crying into his giant hands, onto Miller's shoulder. Soft hands rubbing calming circles into his back.

He doesn't ask. Miller remembers enough for the both of them. Haunted by Jacob's devastated, tearful voice and the wavering, pathetic sounds of his despair.

“Jake, it's me. You're okay, it's just a dream. It's okay, Jake,” Miller whispered, time and time again. Sometimes with blood on his face, sometimes without. Hands always extended in front of him.

He had gotten better about dodging Jacob's long, long limbs as time progressed. Familiar enough with Jacob's flailing, debilitating panic that by the time they no longer roomed together, Miller could get him out of his night terrors and assuaged in under fifteen minutes without causing either of them bodily harm.

There's no fists or elbows this time, no thunderous, panicked breathing. Jacob doesn't even acknowledge that he's there—no movement, no blinking. He's barely breathing, and the difference between the Now—the air in Jacob's apartment stuffy and too warm in the late Georgia summer as Jacob sits, immobile and unreachable—and the Before—the cement floor cold on Miller's thinly clothed ass and his blood hot in his palm as Jacob rages and rages—ratchets the worry up higher in Miller's throat.

 _I – I gotta be careful here. I'm either gonna get through to him, or he's gonna snap and lay my ass out,_ Miller grimly thinks.

But if there's anyone he'd take a beating for, it's Jacob Seed. Owes him this much and so, so much more, more than Miller's been able to repay him since that horrible, fucked up night in December of '90.

He wouldn't have made it out of that godforsaken desert without Jacob Seed.

As he slowly moves to his knees at Jacob's side, Miller braces to have to defend himself against his distraught best friend. Shaggy, almost non-regulation blonde hair falls into Miller's eyes as he makes himself comfortable on the ground, but he doesn't move to fix it. Doesn't risk the unnecessary movement being what triggers Jacob's brain back online.

He just glances up at Jacob's handsome, scarred face through golden curls and _aches_ for him. Longs to reach out and cup his face, rub some color back into his ashen cheeks. He's old hat at denying what he wants, though. Looking but not touching.

“Jake?” he whispers. When that still doesn't get him a response, he risks contact. He ever so carefully reaches his hand out and curls it around Jacob's own, where it's clenched too tightly on his knee. Wrinkling the fabric, blanching his knuckles.

It's not Jacob's face, not what Miller _wants_ , but he's used to settling for less. Willing to take what he can get.

Jacob's Adam's Apple bobs as he swallows hard. The motion makes Miller perk up a little, but when Jacob does nothing more, his shoulders sag again.

“It's me, it's PJ - Miller. C'mon, man. Talk to me,” he implores, scooting in as close to Jacob's leg as he dares. His fingers desperately clutch at the ridges of Jacob's faintly scarred knuckles, a dusky, faded red compared to the rest of his pale, calloused hand. Faint white lines of scars sprinkled across them like confetti. “Tell me what happened.”

Jacob's body shudders back to life in increments. His breathing regulates, slightly faster than his normal rate but not terrified, panicky, on the cusp of an anxiety attack. Owlishly he blinks his eyes, curling forward the slightest amount and scrunching his face up around the stinging, dry burning in them. With each closing of his eyelids, the vacant darkness in his eyes smudges more and more, until the sky blue of them is mostly free of stormclouds.

Beneath Miller's hand, Jacob's twitches.

“Jake?” Asks around his heart beating in his throat. Miller swears he can taste it, feels the gentle thumping of it against the back of his tongue.

There's a soft noise vibrating in Jacob's chest, quiet and distressed. Something he'd normally be ashamed of, that he'd swallow down and refuse to show, but his body is giving him a fit and won't cooperate with him.

“What the fuck do I do now?” His voice gravelly with disuse, echoing in his dimly lit apartment. A gentle, almost sad shaking of his head, uncontrollable and shameful. Angles his jittering eyes down to look at his friend on his knees, the familiar sight of Peter Josiah Miller at his side, hopeful and helping.

“We can get rip-roaring drunk?” Miller suggests, his chest pressed to Jacob's calf and his chin atop their hands. Smiling warmly to blunt the edges of his suggestion.

Jacob doesn't allow himself to dwell on how soft, how sweet he finds Miller's puppy dog eagerness and loyalty. Blonde hair floppy like a retriever's. Big, soultry whiskey eyes. He digs his teeth into his lower lip to keep from bending over and sinking them into Miller's soft throat. Get him to yield, to submit to Jacob. To return some semblance of power to Jacob's life. “You got enough to keep me loaded until Training starts?”

Miller makes a dramatic showing of mulling Jacob's question over. His head turns, cocking theatrically on their layered hands. The fingers on his other hand drum aimlessly on the front of Jacob's shin. “No, definitely not. Probably not good for you, anyway. But I can get you through the night, at least.”

Jacob'll take it. He'll find some other way to get him through the other thirteen.

-

It takes six weeks for his ARC program to wrap up.

It feels like he's back in Juvie, working to get his GED. The instructor looking upon him with barely masked pity, eyes dancing over the scars on his face, the shiny chemical burns marring his forearms. Stuck behind some too small desk, legs uncomfortably bent to the side. Ordered to be here, once by the American government and once by the American military.

The only difference now is that Jacob is older and has better control over his anger. Less likely to fling his desk and fight the other participants, though he does snap a pencil in his hand a few times. Standard yellow no. 2 dig dig digging into the meat of his palm, a little shower of wood drifting to the floor.

He misses bootcamp, misses deployment. His muscles burning as he forces himself to run further, train harder, to make himself as strong and valuable as possible. The Georgia humidity and the dry burn of the open Iraqi sky, both blisteringly hot, baking him in his fatigues. The harsh rays of the sun overhead beating down on him as they pinken the tips of his ears, his cheeks. Lighten the eye catching red of his hair until it shines like a brazier of flames.

He needs to be active, hands-on. Not stuck behind some tiny fucking desk, rehashing information he already knows because he's fucking lived it. He's not some wet behind the ears E-5 or E-6, promoted only because they had managed to draw out their service for the required time. He's fought and fought and fought for where he is, for his Brothers and this country—and where did it get him?

Cast aside. Damaged goods. A few medals pinned to his dress uniform and a gentle hand ushering him off the stage. New acronyms silently stamped and entered into his official medical records. They'll follow him around like a stain, as damning as his scars.

 _PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder._ Like he hadn't been handling all of the traumatic shit life had been throwing at him since he could talk.

 _A possible case of Chronic Multisymptom Illness (CMI), unofficially called Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) by the Troops._ Muscle fatigue and pain. Frequent headaches. A lowered immune system. Rashes that keep the chemical burns on his forearms from ever truly healing. A tremor in his head when he gets too worked up.

At least he had the option to stay within the military. He'll take his bullshit new assignment and the mandated trips to the Veteran's Affairs Office if he can at least stay enlisted.

So he survives it, endures it. Grins and bears it as a man in his sixties teaches him things he already knows, weaving in stories of his glory days in Korea, what little time he spent there. No time at all compared to Jacob, but he's not here to measure dicks.

He just needs to get on and get out so he can throw himself into this. So he can show the Army he's not entirely broken, so he can come back.

At graduation, he takes his certificate of completion and heads for his newest posting without a word, ignoring the invitations of celebration being offered to him by the others.

-

The Army Recruitment Office he gets stationed at is in a little stripmall just outside of Buckhead, a wealthy suburb of Atlanta. It looks too clean, too polished and bright, for what Jacob knows awaits their potential recruits.

Aching muscles and _yes sir's!_ and forced assimilation into the collective unit. The anxiety bobbing and swaying in your gut like a buoy on the ocean when you get your first deployment assignment.

IED blasts and your friends bleeding out in the dirt. The whistling of bullets as they cut through the air around you, the solid thunk of them embedding into flesh.

The nightmares.

He's got an honest to god fucking _office_ , though, one of the five within the office. It's furnished better than his new apartment on the outskirts of town, with its tidy wooden desk, surprisingly comfortable rolling chair seated across from a plush visitor's seat, and clunker of a desktop computer. Framed recruitment posters, some dating back as far as World War 2, surround him on the walls painted a soft off-white.

He even has a fucking plant, a giant potted elephant ear that brushes against his forearm whenever he circles his desk. Tucked into the corner but still bathed in the light pouring in from the large window on the wall immediately to the right, its windowsill large enough for Jacob to perch and gaze outside at the skyscrapers of downtown Atlanta.

It's surreal as all get out, but beats the hell out of the alternative.

He's been at this office for a month now and attending meetings at the VA for almost two. Some of the service members there weren't as lucky as he was, didn't get the chance to trade a humvee for a desk chair.

They're washed up, washed out. Waiting for the rest of their life to crash down around them once the funds run out and they've got nothing left tethering them to their brotherhood but their memories.

Jacob at least gets to keep this.

-

Miller sprawls out on Jacob's still uncomfortable couch, determined to break it in. Legs dangling over the arm, feet bouncing against its lower wall, as he watches Jacob quietly divvy out the takeout Miller had brought along to justify his presence.

He comes over a lot to keep an eye on Jacob, to force him to interact like a normal human being. Wedges himself in through the barely opened front door of Jacob's new apartment with a sweating six pack of cheap beer, or a plastic bag of greasy, delicious food.

When he sees how _bare_ Jacob's apartment is, he starts coming over with furniture. Stuff the guys on base no longer have space for, stuff his mom's kept in her storage unit for years and will probably not even realize is gone.

An armchair and a better, sturdier bedframe. Three barstools for the little nook separating the kitchen from the main room. A less horrendous shower curtain and a badass stereo system. A giant fake cactus with red flowers, _Hey look, it's you!_ _Pricky and giant._

He pays for some of it, too, he just doesn't tell Jacob.

“Desk duty make you soft, Seed? God, hurry up, I'm hungry,” Miller whines, one arm tucked under his head and the other curled over his aching, empty stomach.

The long line of Jacob's back bristles for just a second before it releases. Then with a small, almost aborted shake of his head, Jacob brings their meals into the living room and sets them on the coffee table Miller had brought over two weeks ago from the Base.

The beer he had brought with him from the kitchen is removed from the pockets of his cargo pants and set forcefully on the table before Miller. He cracks open both tabs and watches, smirking, as one spews a little foam. Entirely missing the couch but nailing Miller between his eyes.

“F-Fuck, God! What the hell!” Sputtering, Miller flings himself upright, scrubbing the slight burn of beer out of his eyes. “I bring you nourishment and this is how you treat me?”

“Shut up and eat your food, PJ,” Jacob rumbles around a laugh, sinking into the armchair at Miller's side. He adverts his eyes when Miller upends his shirt to wipe off his face. Distinctly ignores the rippling of his toned, tanned abdomen. Doesn't count all of the freckles and moles suddenly beared to the air. “How're things on Base?”

Fishing for information as usual. Desperate to keep abreast of everything going on back Home, even with Jacob returning to the Base damn near every week. Sleeping in Miller's spare room. Drinking beer with his remaining enlisted platoon mates, a cigarette between his lips and laughter in his eyes.

It's not like Miller can blame him, so he doesn't. The Army's the only true family Jacob's got left, and he's grasping at straws to stay connected to it.

Miller doesn't mention that he considers Jacob family, that so do Miller's parents. He's got an open invite to holiday get-togethers and there's always at least one present beneath their Christmas tree with Jacob's name on it. His mother asks about him frequently, _Petey, Honey, when's Jake gonna come around? He doing okay? Bring him over soon, will you._

“Same as always, Jake. You were just there three days ago. Nothing's happened. Peace time and all that shit.” The plate in Miller's hand is too hot to safely hold, so he balances it on his lap. He's got a forkful of fried rice halfway to his mouth when he makes an inquisitive sound and turns further into Jacob, knocking their knees. “How's Recruitment?”

Jacob matches Miller's sound with an irritated one of his own. “Bullshit, is what it is. They're sending me out to a high school to run a booth,” he gripes around a mouthful of lo mein. Swallows it hard and reaches for his beer. “I didn't even fucking _go_ to high school, Mills. Now I gotta go sit in a cafeteria and talk to these little shits for three hours a day.”

“Sounds like an easy gig,” Miller hums.

Jacob snorts into his beer, eyebrow raise and blue eyes narrowed. “You take it, then. Swap with me.”

It's a familiar conversation, one which always ends the same way. Miller sighs softly and chews his food, pushing his fork around his plate. When he swallows, he looks up to see Jacob studying him carefully, his scarred face hard to read.

“It's not forever, Jake. Just for now. You've been having a rough time—no, don't say you haven't! I've _seen it_ , Jake. My nose is permanently fucked up _because_ you've been having a hard time! Just get through this, get through your appointments at the VA. Keep this as uncomplicated as possible, and you'll be back on Base before you know it.”

Jacob sets his plate down during the middle of Miller's monologue, and leans back in his seat. Gazes out the glass patio doors behind the couch, letting in the last of the early fall's daylight. He runs his tongue over his teeth and wills his thundering, anxious heart to calm. Doesn't want to fight with Miller, doesn't know why he keeps picking at the same wound, refusing to let it heal.

“I hear you, PJ. I hear you,” he mumbles, finally rolling his neck to face Miller again. His curly blonde hair is getting too long, too shabby. Jacob wants to run his fingers through it just as much as he wants to tell him to lob it all off, to avoid reprimands back on Base. “Uncomplicated as possible. Just get through this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, as a wrap-up, this au takes place in a universe in which jacob remains in the military instead of being discharged. there's no cannibalization of miller, but the other hardships are all there - old man seed, the barn fire, the brothers being separated. probably not going to introduce joseph until very, very late, if at all. :-| this is mostly gonna be about jacob and john having a Normal Life, and miller/jacob pining, ok.
> 
> i'm not following ubisoft's offkilter timeline for them, either. instead i'm gonna use one of my own that i've doctored a lil:
> 
> JACOB ELIJAH SEED, 27, born septemer 1st, 1971  
> JOSEPH ISAIAH SEED, 24, born june 27th, 1974  
> JOHN NATHANIEL SEED, 17, born may 10th, 1981  
> PETER “PJ” JOSIAH MILLER, age 26, born july 4th, 1972


	2. Chapter 2

His first solo, off-site recruitment is at a high school.

It's not an ordinary high school, private and advanced and Prestigious, but Jacob should have guessed that. The neighborhood the Recruitment Office is in is affluent and wealthy, and it makes sense that they'd send him to the one of the schools close by, filled to the brim with the children of doctors and lawyers and successful entrepreneurs.

As he parks his Jeep in the visitor's lot of Mayview Academy on a drizzling, dreary early November afternoon, Jacob wonders if he'll be able to handle this. _Children_ , teenagers with their unchecked hormones and their lack of brain-to-mouth filters.

He's not used to children, especially spoiled ones. BMW's and Mercedes and Rolls Royces parked up and down the lot, shining and immaculate even beaded with rain. His busted old Jeep sticks out like a sore thumb, haggard and well used, and while not a particularly vain man Jacob feels his hackles rising in self consciousness before he's even inside the school's walls.

He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his fatigue cargos and resolutely begins his trek across the parking lot, carefully keeping his face blank and neutral. Not making eye contact with the students and faculty curiously eyeing him as he proceeds forward, hefting a duffelbag of supplies over his shoulder.

He hadn't been lying when he told Miller he hadn't gone to high school—he'd burnt that God damn barn down summer of '86, in the break period between 8th and 9th grade. After that, it was off to Juvie, where he dragged through GED courses during the day and fought everyone around him at night.

Angry and frightened and so, so alone.

His memories of public school, middle and elementary, are hazy at best, blurred from exhaustion and hunger. He typically only had enough lunch money for two days a week after he had seen to it that Joseph had enough for four out of five, his stomach gnawing on itself but his heart calmed knowing he was able to provide even that for Joe.

He fought his classmates a lot in defense of his strange, quiet little brother, with his sad, wise eyes; of his broken, fucked up family, his worthless piece of shit Father and his empty shell of a Mother; of himself, too long limbs and too bright hair, a beacon for bullies to flock to.

School had been hard and unforgiving, but a reprieve from his home life all the same. Easier to navigate and defend himself against assailants his own size than to try and pry a grown man off Joseph, off John, to get in all the punches Jacob could manage before he was indubitably overwhelmed.

Better him than Joseph, though, or God forbid _John._

Joe tended to withdrawal into himself After to the point of worrying Jacob ragged. So quiet and in his head that nothing except time could bring Joseph out of himself again. Sometimes Jacob worried that he'd get stuck in there, locked away safely in his head. A bruised, bloody husk where his brother used to be.

The few times Jacob didn't manage to get between his Father and John in time, or wear his Father down enough with his own body and fists to dull his anger, John would climb into Jacob's bed and press his tear-damp face as tightly into Jacob's throat as he could. Body shaking like a leaf as he bawled and dry heaved, quivering so hard Jacob feared he'd fly apart.

He smelled like baby shampoo and blood, and a little something within Jacob died each and every time he hadn't been strong enough to keep that fucking monster off his baby brother.

On one of the worst nights of Jacob's young life, their Father had had enough energy to beat through Jacob and Joseph both, with some left over for John.

_Their Father stands between them, breathing heavily like a great beast, as Jacob fights to catch his breath against the wall separating their living room from the main stairwell. At least two of his ribs are broken, and he clenches his teeth into his busted, bloody lower lip to keep from making a sound. Swallowing around the blood that keeps filling his mouth from where he had bitten deeply into his tongue. His ears ring ring ring from multiple blows to the head, given to him by his Father's fists, his Bible, the very wall Jacob is leaning against._

_There's a crater in it from Jacob's head being smashed into it._

_Joseph lay crumpled in the far corner beside a broken lamp, still breathing but utterly silent. One blue eye almost lifelessly staring at the ceiling, while the other is too swollen to even open._

_If they stay quiet enough, their Father will give them one last parting shot and then shamble out onto the back porch to drink himself back to unconsciousness. Sit in his rocking chair and nurse his whiskey while his sons piece themselves together again._

_Jacob is waiting for it, waiting to be able to collect the last of his strength so he can carry Joseph back upstairs. He needs to make sure Joseph is okay, to set him down in the bathtub and check his wounds. Clean the blood from his face. See if he needed to steal their Father's pickup and rush him to the hospital._

_He doubts that John has slept through their beating, but he foolishly hopes he has. He'd have to wake John up if they need to go to the ER for Joseph, unwilling to leave John by himself if they have to flee, but until then he prays that John just stays away, as safe as he can be tucked out of sight, out of mind._

_Then he sees John at the bottom of the stairs, as if his thoughts made him appear. He's pressed tight to the cracked banister. His cheeks are stained with tears and he's wet himself, the lower half of his pajama top and the crotch of its bottoms damp, darker than the rest. Blue eyes terrifyingly wide, desperate as they search Jacob's partially hidden, bruised face._

“ _J-Jake?” he whispers, but not quietly enough._

_Their Father goes to the right instead of the left, alerted to John's presence like a fucking tracking dog. Jacob's got enough energy left in him to futilely grip at his shirt as he goes passed, tugs their Father back into the room even as his ribs scream at him._

“ _Get the fuck off me, Boy.”_

“ _Leave him alone! John, go, run upstairs!”_

“ _Don't you fuckin' go anywhere, John. Y'come right here, y'hear!”_

“ _Go, John, now! Right fucking now!”_

_They scuffle, but ultimately a punch to the throat has Jacob crumbling to the ground. He doesn't even register the sting of the ground impacting his knees, the aching warmth blossoming across his kneecaps and shins. He just curls up around himself, pawing desperately at his own neck as he fights to breathe._

_He can barely hear John's wailing over the blood pounding in his ears. The dizzy, lightheaded feeling of exhaustion and not enough oxygen magnifying its_ thud thud thud _until he hysterically wonders if all of this is gonna make him puke._

_He can't get air in, what happens if he can't get the vomit out? Drowning in his own vomit as John screams and Joseph listlessly stares._

_The passage of time here is wobbly, like the black spots blinking in his vision. Their Father could beat John for an hour or for five minutes, Jacob wouldn't be able to tell. The world flickers around him like an old timey movie, black and white with jumping, scratchy black on its borders._

_All he knows is one minute he's so oxygen deprived he thinks he might pass out, and the next he's got Joseph and John around him on the living room floor, beneath the arch of its entryway._

_There's a hand on his back, rubbing softly but firmly, and at the first touch he flinches and whines._

“ _Breathe, Jake,” Joseph tells him, and it's like he's speaking through gravel. Jumbled and jagged in his mouth. When Jacob looks at him, his one good eye is distant and foggy._

“ _Jake,” John whispers. Quieter this time. Raspy like Joseph. Jacob looks to him and sees the bruises already forming on his cheek, his jaw, ringed around his throat._

_Jacob's crying before he knows it, and the lightheaded feeling comes rushing back in._

“ _I'm sorry,” Jacob tells them both. He pulls John in against his chest, unmindful of his broken ribs and the dampness of John's pajamas. Crushes his face into John's hair and just shakes._

_From behind him, he can feel Joseph wriggle in closer, feel his hand settle a little heavier on Jacob's quaking back._

_After a few moments of the three of them huddled together, Jacob forcibly rights himself. They can't afford to lick their wounds down here in the open, they need to_ move _and move now. He digs the heels of his hands into his sensitive eyes and shakes his head in attempt to clear out all of the fuzz._

“ _This ain't never happening again,” he tells them suddenly. Pulls himself to his feet and holds out a hand, one to Joseph and the other to John. Curls his fingers around theirs when they both stand, pressed tight against him. “I'm gonna go get his keys and we're leaving, y'hear? We'll go to the hospital and if they ever try to bring us back here I'll – I'll kill the bastard myself.”_

_His words aren't entirely truthful. The police keep them at the hospital under observation for two days, and on the third they bring the brothers back to their childhood home. They're each given a trashbag by a soft-spoken woman from Child Protective Services, and the instructions to fill it with as much of their stuff as they can._

_It doesn't take them long, they don't have very much. Barely enough for two thirds a bag each._

_Downstairs in the living room, beneath its arched entryway, the police read their Father his rights and handcuff him. The Seed Brothers watch from the top landing of the stairs as he's dragged away, and while Jacob stares daggers at him, he does not get to kill him._

Jacob's shaken out of his memories by a slightly irritated voice.

“Y'coming in?” a teenage boy asks, holding one of the doors open. He stares at Jacob like he's a crazy person, and as Jacob realizes he's crossed the entire parking lot without conscious effort, Jacob figures the kid might be closer to the mark than he realizes.

“Yeah. Thanks,” Jacob mumbles, and proceeds forward. His skin aches with phantom pains, and he swears he can taste blood on his tongue. Smell baby shampoo and piss and the salt of tears.

He enters the building and risks a look up at the kids lining the halls around him, and quietly hopes none of them are going through what he and his brothers had. That they never have to look their parent, their _guardian,_ in the eye and will themselves not to cry as they're told for the first time, _Go'on now, Boy, and pick your own switch. Make sure it's a good one the first time, now, otherwise I'm gone have to pick it myself and you're not gone like that one bit._

He hopes that beneath their green and navy patterned uniforms, beneath their crisp white button-ups with _Mayview Academy_ emblazoned above their hearts, that none of them are hiding bruises and cuts and lashmarks the way they had had to.

As the secretary checks him in, Jacob thinks about John. John had only been four last time Jacob had seen him, screaming and begging for him in the firelight as the police led Jacob away like they had their Father, but here, now, he'd be seventeen. Eighteen in December, the very first day—Jacob celebrates it every year by getting drunk, just as he does Joseph's June 27th birthday.

He'd be a Junior, maybe a Senior in high school had foster care and orphanages not disrupted his studies beyond repair.

He wonders if John's hair would stay chestnut brown like Joseph's, or if it would darken like their Mother's. Would he be tall like Jacob, like Joseph's limbs had promised to make him, or average height like their Father?

Is he happy, wherever he is? Safe?

 _Loved_?

Jacob wonders that most of all. Wonders if John and Joseph found love, found tenderness with new homes, with new Families. If they had found Belonging as Jacob had, after so many years of strife.

“Sergeant Seed, you can follow me to the cafeteria so you can set up your table. The first block of lunches start in about thirty minutes,” the secretary tells him, a spindly, graying woman with bifocals magnifying dark brown, almost black eyes. The skirt she's wearing has pink poodles on it, and Jacob watches the embroidered dogs swish at her ankles to distract himself from his own thoughts.

-

Against the back wall of the cafeteria, there's already a plastic table set up for military recruiters. It's surface is draped in scratchy, black cloth, and the fold-out chair he sets his duffelbag on protests beneath its weight.

“I'm sure you've already been told, but your schedule is 10:30AM to 3:30PM Monday, Wednesday, and every other Friday. On Wednesdays, you'll be with an Air Force recruiter, and on Fridays you'll be with both the Air Force and a representative from the Marines. Most of the time, you'll be here in the cafeteria, but you might be asked to move your table into the hall, or pop in on a GYM class or two.” Her accent is flat, lilts in an entirely unfamiliar way. As Jacob unzips his duffel, he wonders if she's from the Midwest, Nebraska, maybe.

“We're honored to have you here, Sergeant Seed. Truthfully, I think you'll be the first service member we've had here at Mayview to actually have any combat experience—most of our recruiters are pretty young, green. We ask that you keep your stories...” She clears her throat, looks away from him with a flush as he cocks a brow at her. “That you keep your stories PG rated. These children have wealthy, _protective_ parents, and I don't think they'd take too kindly to blood and gore, do you?”

He fights to keep from snorting. In his anxiousness, in being out of his element and shaken by his memories, he forgets to be respectful. Jacob straightens to his full height and swallows hard, nodding.

“I'll keep it clean, Ma'am. Promise,” he tells her softly, tone apologetic. Body turned towards her, smiling softly.

The secretary's entire demeanor changes then. She reaches forward and pats one of his hands. Eyes him with warm, magnified eyes.

“Come stop by the office if you get thirsty,” she tells him, squeezing his hand. “The lunch ladies know to give each recruiter a meal a day if you want it, but all they've got here to drink is milk. I've got some pop tucked away, and I don't mind sharing if you like diet.”

“Thank you, Ma'am,” he replies, and he squeezes her hand back once before their connection breaks. “I might take you up on that offer.”

She hums at him, cheeks a little flustered. “You've got about twenty minutes or so until first block arrives. Go ahead and set up your table.”

Jacob watches the poodles on her skirt as she leaves, then sighs and begins unloading his bag.

-

The kids of the first lunch block aren't horrible.

They flock to him because he's new, because he's obviously seen some shit, with the scarring on his face and arms. He's got a whole group of them around his table by the end block one, snatching up his Army pamphlets and the free odds and ends he brought along, seated in a bowl near the far corner of the table.

They talk over themselves to ask him questions like a pack of yipping, eager puppies.

“How long have you been with the military?” a girl asks, braids pulled into a high ponytail on the top of her head. She's got a pair of cross earrings dangling from her lobes, catching in the sunlight pouring in from the windows to their left.

“Almost ten years,” he answers, and he smiles when she does.

“My Daddy's been in the Navy for twenty,” she tells him excitedly.

Before he can respond, tell her to thank him for his service, the blonde boy beside her asks, “How many times have you deployed? Have you **killed** someone, Officer Seed?”

He doesn't correct the improper title, but hums quietly and shifts in his seat. “Seven times, I've been deployed seven times.” He purposefully dances around the second question, but doesn't have to for long when a teen he can't see asks from the back, “Where to?”

“The first time, to Iraq. Storm and Shield both. Y'all were probably to remember when all that shit started in the Gulf.” They close in tighter around him, buzzing with new questions, giggling at his profanity. “Iraq again the second time. Bosnia the third. Then Haiti, then Kuwait. Iraq again the last two times. Active combat for most of them.”

The questions come at him rapid fire, and he laughs a little to himself as he gets comfortable in his seat.

He keeps it as tame as he can. Doesn't want to lie to them because, _shit_ , if they enlist they're likely going to find out for themselves. With the way the United States government keeps poking the bears of the world, they're likely to find themselves in another war sooner rather than later.

He fields questions left and right, carefully pushing aside a few—mostly about his body count and the carnage he's seen. There are some of his memories with the military even he shies away from. Can't look at them without whiskey goggles and the promise of smudged remembrance in the morning.

Clipped images of a bombed bridge in Bosnia. The haunted, far away screams of children in Iraq. The muted, iron rich stench of the blood of his _friends_ curling in his nostrils.

He shakes the memories from his head and settles for telling the group about Miller almost setting their humvee on fire with a flare, which subsequently almost got them killed when its light and their scrabbling attracted the wrong kind of attention.

When the bell rings announcing the end of their meal, more than one complain about having to leave his table. They drag their feet as they leave him, waving at him from the exit doors.

It startles him how much he didn't hate it. How their attentions and eagerness to learn about him salve some part of him deep inside, shadowed and aching and locked away. The anguished, angry teenage boy within him that never got to _be_ a teenage boy, assuaged by the fact that these kids here and now seem to like him.

He wonders if Joseph and John would be as enthralled by his edited war stories.

There's a fiffteen minute gap between first block and second, so Jacob uses that time to take the secretary up on her offer. His presence before her desk seems to please her, and she grins at him as she jumps out of her chair and leads him back into a small, tidy lounge.

“Coke okay?” she asks. Before he can even answer, she's pressing a chilled plastic bottle into his hand. “How'd it go?”

“Good, good,” he answers, worrying the sweaty neck of the bottle in his grip.

“They didn't demand too many gruesome details, did they?” She's got a bottle of her own, and she takes a long pull from it before slapping her lips around the taste.

“Nah, Ma'am, I think I handled it pretty well.” He lays on the accent for her, and watches, amused, as she flushes again. He snorts quietly when she gives him a once-over, then he opens his soda and takes a drink. The carbonation fizzles and crackles on the back of his tongue, burns in his nose as he swallows. “Kept it PG, I promise.”

“Well – well. You've got about ten minutes left until second block, why don't you get yourself something to eat, huh, dear?”

Jacob hums to himself, spinning the tab at the base of his soda's lid as he goes.

Older women have always loved him, feeling the need to swoop in and protect him once they get a good look at his scars. Something about the suffering he's endured has their maternal instincts going haywire, making them trip over themselves to offer him food and drink.

He's used it to his advantage for years—overseas with civilians and on the homefront, with his superiors' wives, with pretty nurses, with Miller's mom _(“Dude, my mother made you lasagna from scratch! I have to be actively dying to get her to do that, what the fuck_ ”).

He's gonna have these scars all his life, after all, the least they can do is get him free stuff. Homemade lasagna and free desserts at his favorite diner. Soda pop in the office lounge.

Recruitment, instead of discharge.

The lunch ladies are no less swayed by his scars and his fatigues. He lays on the accent for them, hip cocked against the counter, as they laugh at something he's said and rush off to grab him a fresh slice of pizza and fries.

The food is less shitty than at his old schools, he finds as he sits at his table and takes a bite. Rome was, is dirt poor, and this part of Atlanta has money by the bucketload. Wealthier kids, better supplies, he supposes. It's still cafeteria food, but the teenage boy within his chest will take whatever he can get—remembers his aching, empty stomach and his lowered blood sugar during grade school Before, and urges the Jacob here and now to take another bite.

“Oh. We've got a new recruiter.”

Jacob swallows hard around a french fry and turns his body to look at the person who spoke to him. He's still got a little less than five minutes before the next group of kids enter, and he actually kind of wants to finish his food before they arrive.

“Yup,” he says around a fry, watching as a teenage boy approaches his table. Thick, short cropped brown-black hair and the bluest eyes Jacob's ever seen. Tight fitting uniform, with his sleeves all the way down, clasped together by a set of polished cufflinks. It looks like he's had his uniform _tailored_ , as it fits him better than the students Jacob had seen the previous period.

 _Must have a lot of money,_ Jacob muses.

“Which branch?” the kid asks. He fiddles with the bowlful of free trinkets Jacob's sat out. Picks up one of his business cards and says his name aloud, quietly to himself.

“United States Army.”

“Hm. I'd rather go into the Air Force. I've always wanted to fly.”

Too many fries at once, and Jacob's throat twinges as he swallows hard around them. He reaches for his soda and takes a few quick pulls, breathing through the burn. “You can fly helicopters in the Army, y'know.”

The boy huffs and closely inspects a cheap pen with Jacob's office's number on it. “I want to fly _planes_ , not helicopters. Totally different concept.”

Little shit.

“You're a little early for second block,” he rumbles, reaching for his pizza.

“Oh, I'm not in second block. Third, actually.” The boy shrugs his shoulders after he replaces all of Jacob's odds and ends, all spare the business card. He flips it through his hand idly, the other clenched at his backpack strap. “Just couldn't suffer through Mr. Schmidt's GYM class for a minute longer. Ducked out.”

Jacob snorts. He drags another fry through his ketchup and pops it in his mouth. “In a school like this, is there even a decent reason to skip? My old middle school had black mold and no air conditioning.”

“That sounds dreadful,” blue-eyes deadpans. He lets it hang between them for a moment before his lips quirk up, and despite himself Jacob finds himself laughing. Once Jacob quiets, the kid gives him a critical once-over. His eyes soften as they pass over Jacob's facial scars, but there's less pity there than Jacob's used to. It's more like understanding, and the difference has the food in his stomach churning.

Commiseration, almost.

A kid like this, even if he is a little shit, shouldn't be able to commiserate with his scars. Jacob eyes him critically right back, but the kid's got his sleeves all the way down and his collar tight against his throat. His knuckles have scars on them, but before Jacob can get a good look they're being shoved into the kid's pockets.

“Don't you know it's not nice to stare?” The emotion in the kid's voice is all wrong—pissy and defiant but curled in on itself, soft and sensitive and quiet. It breaks in his throat, jagged and raw.

Jacob watches the blush crawl from the kid's throat to his hairline and frowns at him. “You were staring first,” he drawls.

“Yeah, well. What is this, high school?” He fidgets before Jacob, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“As a matter of fact, yeah, kid, it kinda is.” He wants to ask the kid to take his hands out of his pockets and let Jacob see them. Wants to _demand_ that the kid tell him why his knuckles are so fucked up.

“Don't call me kid,” the kid pouts. “I'm seventeen, I'm not a child.”

“Still legally a kid, hate to break it to you. I could call you boy if you wanted. Or sir.” Jacob smirks at the incredulous, bratty look he gets.

“You could use my _name_ ,” he hisses. His fists bunch up in his pockets.

Jacob hopes that his knuckles are scarred because he's got a temper. Prays that that's all it is, just anger problems. Those are a lot easier to deal with than trauma from abuse—financially and emotionally.

Jacob should know, he's got both.

“I don't know your name,” Jacob tells him.

“It's John.”

Jacob just, just barely manages not to make a wounded sound.

Of all the fucking names, his name is _John_. He looks the kid over again, takes in his blue eyes and his dark hair and _aches_ in his chest. He can feel the jagged, ruinous hole in his chest caused by his brothers' absence twinging, beating out of sync of his racing heart.

“John Duncan.” John's hand is in front of his face, his knuckles just out of focus.

Jacob takes his hand, willing his own not to shake.

“Jacob Seed,” he returns. His own hand dwarfs John's, warm and calloused against John's slightly moist palm.

 _You look like how I imagine my Johnny would_ , he does not say.

“Can I hang during lunch? You're not gonna rat me out, are you?” John asks as their hands drop. He sways closer to Jacob's table, gripping at his backpack straps. “We're running the mile in GYM and I _hate_ getting sweaty. If you let me stay, I swear I'll enlist.”

“Don't say shit like that,” Jacob snaps around the heart in his throat.

John takes a quick step back from him, the soles of his shoes squeaking against the floor. Against the strap of his backpack, his scarred knuckles are blanched white. His blue eyes are wide and hunted, aimed down at the floor. There's tension in his shoulders as they hunch forward, in on himself.

It makes Jacob feel like complete and utter shit.

“Sorry,” Jacob says gruffly. He pulls the chair out beside him, and when John looks up at him again, he gestures towards it. “Won't rat you out, _John_. You can stay.”

John doesn't move for a few moments. He eyes Jacob again, studying his scars and his hair and the name sown onto his breast pocket. Brow wrinkled like he's confused by something.

Once he's satisfied, he slowly, calmly walks around the table and lowers himself into the seat beside Jacob.

“Can I have some fries?” he quietly asks.

Jacob pushes the entire tray over to him without a word.

-

John's a popular kid, as it turns out.

Most of the teens that flood the room say hi to him upon entering. They don't seem surprised to see John there, and Jacob wonders, amused, if this is a normal thing for him.

Not even the teachers look surprised.

One even rolls his eyes as he approaches the table and says, “If I made you leave, you'd come right back, wouldn't you?”

“Yup!” John says. His teeth are bright and white as he grins, proud of himself. He leans forward onto the table, chest pressing against his linked hands, and then looks over at Jacob. His eyes seem to focus on his hair for a few heartbeats until his gaze drops and locks with Jacob's. Then he winks, softening his smile for Jacob.

The teacher snorts fondly. He looks young, barely out of school himself. The green tie around his neck is done incorrectly, and Jacob's bootcamp training makes his palms itch to reach across and fix it. “Maybe you can help Mr. Duncan here, Officer Seed. Instill in him some of the code of ethics the Marines are famous for.”

“I'm not in the Marines, Sir,” Jacob says at the same time John huffs and says, “Mr. Gates, he's in he _Army_ , not the Marines.”

“Army, sorry, my bad. English teacher, not history.” His hands flutter in front of him as two sets of piercing blue eyes study him. There's a blotchy blush high on his face. “Be good, John. See you after third block?”

“I'll be there, promise,” John says.

When the teacher's gone, Jacob turns his body towards John. The first block kids didn't surround him until about fifteen minutes in, long enough for them to comfortably eat their meals before feeling out the new guy for war stories, so Jacob figures he can use the time to get to know John better.

He feels weirdly protective of this kid, even though they just met. He's probably projecting a little too much, there's no way this can be _his_ brother, _his John,_ but he doesn't fight it. Children need all the people in their corner that they can get, and the way John oscillates between brash and reserved has alarms signaling in Jacob's head.

“You actually gonna go?” Jacob asks.

John pulls his backpack off the floor and starts rooting around inside of it. “Yeah, I guess,” he says, face practically tucked inside the main pouch. He pulls out folders and a textbook and sets them on the table before he finds whatever he's looking for. With a triumphant cry, John fishes a bag of airheads from the depths of his backpack and places them on the table between them.

He blushes furiously when Jacob cocks a brow, squirming a little in his chair.

“Thanks - for letting me stay,” he mumbles, burning face tucked down against his chest as he gestures to the wrinkled bag.

“You're welcome,” Jacob returns, his hand already inside it.

“Don't eat all my blue ones,” John warns.

Jacob pulls two out of the bag and cackles. The fact that he has to quickly swallow the second one and begin actually attempting to recruit with a bright blue tongue and his breath smelling sweet like raspberries, is John's payback.

John acts like his assistant. He hands out fliers and encourages kids to take a pen or Jacob's business card. When the questions get a little too gory— _Sergeant Seed, what does brain matter look like?—_ John politely but firmly reroutes the conversation by asking a question of his own.

It's nice, and second block goes even smoother than the first under John's careful direction. Jacob talks so much by the end of it that his throat is scratchy, and when he finds his Diet Coke empty he groans and rubs at his face.

John grabs his backpack again, and retrieves a bottle of water from its depths before pressing it into Jacob's hand.

“That thing magic?” Jacob asks, the bottle already against his lips.

“Nah, I just...like to be prepared. You should see the stash I keep in my car and at home.” John's voice is unexpectedly small, and he squirms in his chair again, awkward under Jacob's piercing blue eyes.

Jacob used to stash things back in Rome, in a hole in the wall of their joint bedroom, hidden behind their dresser. He'd hide food for his brothers to make sure they got something to eat. Fill water bottles and tuck them away for when it wasn't safe to leave their bedroom. Squirrel away medical supplies for when things inevitably got bad.

He'd steal money from their Father when he was passed out drunk, and drag both Joseph and John behind him as he trekked in the muggy Georgian heat towards the nearest grocery store.

More often than not, John gravitated towards the sweeter snack items, the expensive name brand kind. Jacob stashed those, too, hid them in the waistband of his jeans when he didn't have enough money to cover it all. The potential for getting caught was well worth John's reverent baby blues gazing up at him in wonderment, his face sticky with sugar.

Joseph liked salty, always went for chips or nuts. Most of his selections were within budget, but occasionally they had to almost waddle out of the store like ducks, taking care that the plastic of hidden packages didn't wrinkle too bad.

“I know the feelin', kid. My old man was a mean drunk. Used to, uh, hide things for my brothers all the time. Oldest out of 'em, had to make sure we were taken care of.” At Jacob's admission, John slowly raises his gaze again.

As softly, gingerly as Jacob can, he asks, “Your parents hurt you?”

The response is immediately. John's shoulders go back, ramrod straight, and Jacob can practically hear his heart hammering in his chest. Jacob's heart thunders inside his own chest, the pounding rhythm sounding eerily like, _Help him protect him John John John._

“No,” John says, but the flush in his cheeks and the curl to his fists says differently. “I'm just paranoid, okay? Like to be prepared. Just because _you've_ got shitty parents who hit you, doesn't mean _I_ do.”

Jacob bristles against the assault, but tells himself over and over that John's probably on the defensive because he struck a nerve. “Whatever you say, kid. If you need to talk—”

“Not a _kid_ , and I don't want to fucking _talk_ ,” John hisses. He draws himself up out of his chair and jerks his backpack closed. For a few moments, he just breathes, standing over Jacob. Scarred knuckles white against his backpack straps once more, blue eyes far away.

"John—" Jacob begins.

“I'm going to get food.”

John doesn't. He takes one final look at Jacob and exits the now empty cafeteria, and doesn't return when third block arrives.

-

When he leaves Mayview, Jacob finds himself at an old, weathered church in one of the poorer neighborhoods in Atlanta. He doesn't even know how he's gotten there—just remembers robotically climbing into his Jeep and _going_.

He had intended to drive back to his apartment to decompress, but somehow ended up here, in the parking lot of an aged white church. It looks eerily similar to the one his Father had sometimes dragged him to, with its high, white steeple and chipped paint. All of its windows dirty and foggy with age, spare a stain-glass depiction of doves taking flight in the very center of the steeple.

Jacob remembers sitting in the back of his Father's pickup truck with his brothers, sweating through their Sunday best in the miserable Georgia heat. All three of them pitifully waving their hands in front of their faces or feverishly tugging on their shirt collars for even the slightest bit of reprieve, the gentlest breeze.

It was better than the alternative. They willingly chose to endure the relentless sun and the mosquitoes during the drive because anything was better than being in the cab with their Father.

Inside the church, their Father had at least acted like he gave a shit about them. Arms around Jacob and Joseph, telling the pastor about how much their family loved God's word and today's sermon.

Not enough to stop drinking before or after, but just enough to stop drinking during.

The pastor had politely asked their Father not to come around after one too many almost altercations between him and the other parishioners. Things had gotten worse for them after that.

He gets out of his Jeep and shambles onto the walkway leading towards the entrance, studying his vehicle as he goes. No apparent body damage, no dents or blood, so he must've gotten here without harming himself or anyone else.

He finds the door unlocked when he tries the handle. The door creaks as he slinks inward, and the heat inside the cramped entryway is worse than that of the outside. Musky like water damage and dark, with one lightbulb flickering and the other already dead.

Sweat beads on his forehead, his upper lip and cheeks beneath his short cropped beard, as he proceeds towards the doors leading into main body of the church. He pulls on the collar, fanning himself as they had in Old Man Seed's truck bed so many times before, and walks quietly down the main aisle. The whirls in the white pews catch on his fingertips as he touches them as he walks towards the front podium.

Inside the belly of the church, the room is cooler and bathed in multicolored light. It smells like potpourri. The inside is well maintained, even if the outside isn't.

Jacob takes a seat in the second row of pews and clasps his hands on the back of the first row.

He doesn't know why the fuck he's here, except that he feels closer to Joseph on hallowed ground, like if he sat silently enough in the pews, he could feel Joseph's presence. Stoic and sad, _I know the Lord loves us, Jacob. This is all just a test of faith. One day, we'll be free and He'll know our hearts are true and His._

Maybe it's instinctual, now, to seek out a place where the veil is thinnest between himself and his brothers. He had found himself in churches a lot throughout his military service, on Base and in makeshift chapels overseas.

The clergymen had smiled at him and welcomed him into their domain, and even when he refused to do more than just sit quietly, they tried to include him. Offered him their prayers and time and occasionally candles for him to light in honor and memory.

As much as he missed Joseph, wished to be near him, and as kind as the clergy were to him—it was a torturous, self-flagellating affair. He'd sit in the front row of an empty church in the middle of the night and will himself not to cry, to rage. Tried to keep himself in check so he didn't destroy the church, to desecrate the temple of a God who had splintered Jacob's soul so completely.

_If God loves us so much, huh, Joe, where the fuck are you? Where's Johnny? Why am I alone?_

His own beliefs had twisted and turned over the years, from the volatile, vicious hatred he felt in his Father's house— _God ain't fuckin' real, Joe. What kind of merciful Father would put us through this shit? John – John just lost his first baby tooth from a **beating** , Jesus Christ, Joe!—_to the numbness he felt in bootcamp— _Won't ever see my brothers again, what kind of God would keep us apart like this?_ —to this blank, itchy space he felt in his chest now.

He wants to believe in something so desperately it physically hurts. Hopes there's an Entity out there with even a shred of mercy in Its soul that'll let him keep what little he has left.

As he sits bathed in rainbow light, Jacob clears his throat before bowing his head.

_I don't – don't know how to do this. It hasn't really seemed to work the other times I've tried, but it has helped a little. Emotionally, I guess. The therapist at the VA says it helps to talk things out with people, and who better than the Lord God Himself? If You're real. Here's hoping You are._

_Please keep an eye on my brothers, Joseph and John. It's been thirteen years since I've seen either of them, and – and I'd just really like for them to be okay. Happy. Loved._

_Keep an eye on my brothers in arms, too. Especially little shits like Miller, he doesn't know his gun from his dick. He should've gone to college, should've never enlisted, legacy or not and – and the little shit's important to me, so please, keep an eye out?_

_I also, uh, would like you to keep an eye out on this teenager I met today. Name's John Duncan. I think – think his parents are beating him, like my old man beat us. Can't prove it, don't know the kid but, uh...I know the signs pretty well. Just – just let him be okay, okay? All I ask._

His eyes are certainly not misty when he opens them, and he only rubs at them with the heels of his hands because there's dust in them or something.


	3. Chapter 3

There's someone in his apartment.

Jacob can see a silhouette moving around his living room, pacing around back and forth. He can't make out any features from this far away, in the cab of his Jeep in the parking lot out front and through the distorting haze of his patio door blinds, but he guesses it's a man by the build. Thinks they're alone, as there's only ever the one figure moving around restlessly.

Jacob's fingers itch for the stock of a rifle that's no longer there.

He climbs out of his Jeep slowly, taking care to close the door behind him as gently as possible. His approach is calm, controlled, but there's ringing in his ears, thump thump thumping in his chest.

The shrubbery around his downstairs neighbor's enclosed deck is undamaged, tight and green and without boot prints or anomalous dips in the hedging. The white paint of the cement deck wall is scuffed, chipped and stained with dirt and age and pollen from previous rains, and is next to no help in determining whether or not his burglar climbed atop it and bodily pulled themselves up and onto his own patio.

He takes the stairs up to his floor one at a time, dragging his hand up the banister to his right as he goes. The light illuminating the stairwell buzzes in the dark, cool November night. Moths and other flying bugs not yet chased off by the encroaching cooler weather throw themselves at it, _tnk tnk tnk'ing_ the lightbulb's protective housing.

The deadbolt on his apartment door was already scuffed and scratched when he moved in, but when Jacob inspects it now, to the tune of his thunderous heartbeat and the kamikaze diving of enraptured insects, he notices no new marks, big or small. Just the same old etchings, scratched into the gold metal by hands too eager, too careless, or too drunk to notice the teeth of their keys scraping away at the surface.

The knob and door jam both are intact and unaltered. As Jacob slowly feeds his key into first the upper deadbolt and then secondly the lock in the knob, he wonders if he hallucinated the figure. His brain playing a cruel trick on him, taking his already darkened headspace and adding fuel to the fire.

It wouldn't be the first time, and he _had_ just spent almost eight hours sitting by himself in an old, beaten up church. Collecting his thoughts as surely as he scattered them to the wind, both helped and hurt by supposedly hallowed ground.

_Little things can aggravate your PTSD, Sergeant Seed. The big things are easy to prepare for, but it's the little hair triggers that trip us more often than not. Little stressors in our day that would be innocuous by themselves without the weight of our traumas._

As he eases his front door open, soft light and cool air wafts out to meet him. He hadn't left his air conditioner on—hell, he hadn't left a _window_ open—and after barely suppressing a hysterical bubble of laughter, Jacob wonders if someone turned on his AC to rob him in comfort.

He steps into the dim entryway of the apartment, and takes the same care to close this door quietly behind him as he did in the parking lot. The rubber soles of his boots squeaks minutely on the tile beneath him as he treads forward and to the left, into his tiny, orderly kitchen. He frees a large carving knife from its wooden block beside his oven before turning back around and heading towards his living room.

There's another light on besides the one in his entryway, a tall metal-and-plastic floor lamp tucked into the far right corner of the room, nearest the patio's glass door. Jacob had picked it up at a Goodwill years ago, right before he had moved out of dorm housing and into private housing on Base. It's got two frosted plastic shades, yellowed with age, and each has a bulb emitting a different wattage of light into the apartment—one a brighter, crisp white and the other a dulled, soft yellow.

As he slinks towards the hall leading towards his bedroom, Jacob wonders why a burglar would risk turning on a lamp when obviously a flashlight would work so much better.

And why _that_ lamp, when the damn thing needs to be almost coaxed in order to come on? Especially after it was knocked over that one time when they'd been drunk, Miller—

“Jacob, where have you—what the _Fuck_! Hey, hey, hey, it's me! It's me, Jesus Christ. It's me, Jake, please!”

The knife bites into Miller's throat just an inch or so from his Adam's Apple. He swallows fitfully against it, imagines he can hear the edge of it scraping against his throat, shaving away some of his beard. Miller's heart races in his chest, blood rushing through his ears so fast he's dizzy with it.

If he hadn't just come from taking a leak, he'd probably have pissed himself. His hands are still damp and smell faintly of the lemon soap Miller had nearly bought stock in— _Lemons for my sourpuss, huh? Get it! God, how's your aim so good? Always fuckin' hit me in the eye when you throw shit at me._

He doesn't risk any movement. It's not worth even trying to get his hands up like he's done so many times before. Jacob's got him pinned bodily to the wall anyway, his knee pressing painfully into Miller's thigh. Their chests rise and fall just off kilter, out of sync. Crashing against one another as they struggle to even out their breathing.

“It's me, it's Miller—Jesus, Jacob, _please._ Please. Put the knife down,” Miller begs, nearing hysteria. Jacob's punched him in the face in his sleep, smashed his face into the sands of Iraq during a fight, pulled Miller's boxers so far up his ass and over his head Miller could practically taste the cotton—and in all that time, this is the first time he's genuinely been _scared_.

Jacob's eyes are wide and slightly unfocused, but his body makes no move to do anything but hold Miller there and _breathe_.

Miller assumes his voice is getting through to him, however slowly. He swallows hard around the panic in his throat. Presses his weight back against the wall he's pushed up against, trying to get some distance between his body and Jacob's.

He's longed for closeness like this so many times, no air between them but what they share from mouth to mouth. Jacob's heady scent thick in Miller's nose, his heat soaking into Miller's skin, burning him alive, Jacob Jacob Jacob.

In his fantasies, there's no knife. No possibility that his traumatized best friend might be having a mental break and, y'know, _kill him_.

“Jacob, it's me,” he tries. His eyes are misty, the bottom half of his vision blurred by tears. “You weren't answering your phone and I got worried and – and climbed up onto your deck. It was stupid, okay, but you've been gone so _long_ and I just—please, Jay. Please let me go.”

The pressure on his throat increases a touch, the edge of the blade digging further into the meat of Miller's skin. He's not sure if the stinging he feels is because Jacob actually broke the skin, not sure if the wetness he feels is sweat or blood trickling down the column of his throat.

It's so fucking hot in here, hotter than Hell, even with the AC Miller turned on after he shimmied open the patio door. Jacob like a furnace, heat exploding off of him like the embers of fires passed are banked in the silvery, pocked skin on his face and throat.

Miller licks his lips though his mouth has gone dry from fear. Tongue fat and heavy and useless as it swipes futilely along his lower lip. His throat clicks as he swallows, pressing against the edge of the blade biting into his skin. “Jacob? Jacob, I know you can hear me. I'm not a burglar, I'm y-your stupid best friend, okay? I should've been in the living room when you got back, but I didn't know when you'd come home and I had to _pee._ ”

This was fucking stupid, Miller should've _known_ not to sneak up on someone with as many issues as Jacob Seed. Should've known to be immediately visible. Should've left a note on the door.

Should've done _something_ differently.

His Mother's going to be so heartbroken if this goes south. She seemed to care more about Jacob than she did about him at any rate, always told him with a wave of her hand and a tinkling laugh that Jacob was her favorite.

Her only son dead and her surrogate son his killer.

_Don't think about Mom, don't think about Mom, don't think abut Mom._

“Jay, please,” he whispers, closing his eyes in attempt to keep tears from falling.

In the desert, Jacob's face being the last thing he ever saw would've been a blessing, but here in Jacob's tiny apartment, just an hour away from Miller's childhood home, the thought is unbearable.

He had been trying to _help,_ trying to be a good friend, and now the man he loves is going to slit his throat.

Jacob drops the knife and flies away from him all at once. His back collides solidly with the opposite wall as the knife thuds to the floor, muffled by the hall's carpeting. There's a visible shake in Jacob's hands, a quivering tic in his head, as he stares at Miller in horror. He watches his best friend slink to the ground, collapsing in on himself like a marionette with its strings cut. Watches the shitty, mismatched light of the living room lamp catch on a fat drop of blood as it trickles down Miller's tanned throat.

“PJ, oh God,” Jacob breathes. He doesn't move a muscle voluntarily, not even to blink the shimmering red haze out of his vision. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see his hands quivering, distorted by the shake of his head.

Miller makes a soft, wounded sound from the floor. His own hands are shaking as one hesitantly touches his throat. His fingertips flutter against stinging, damaged skin, and when he draws his wet hand back for inspection he makes another wounded sound, louder and more animalistic. Disbelieving and scared.

“ _PJ –_ PJ I'm sorry, oh God, oh fuck,” Jacob says, tripping over his too big tongue. Still he doesn't move, too afraid of himself to trust his body to be gentle, to act right. Terrified that if he moves he'll lurch back into a motion he cannot control, egged on by the damning red in his skull. A prisoner in his own head as his body finishes the job his fight or flight senses had started, taking orders from Jacob's fears.

Miller sniffles wetly, and with his dry hand he angrily swipes at his eyes. He draws his knees up to his chest and warily eyes Jacob from over their peaks. “S-S'okay, Jay. Just...just gimme a second, okay?”

The latent fear in Miller's voice has Jacob's body folding in on itself. He tucks his hands in his armpits and hunches his shoulders. Head tucked down, eyes on the floor. Teeth sunken deep into the flesh of his lower lip, drawing it into his mouth so he can nervously worry at it.

After what feels like hours of pained silence, Miller clamors to his feet. His cheeks are moist, shining wetly in the poor light, but Jacob doesn't see any tears. Just two trails that careen down his face, down down down the stretch of his red stained neck.

“I'm sorry, Jay—”

“Don't fucking say you're sorry!” Jacob's voice booms in the quiet, and he watches, horrified, as Miller slinks away from him. Pressed tightly against his own wall, his chest rising and falling like a cornered rabbit. Prey, with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

It's the second time today he's done something like that, and just thinking about the fear in John's too blue eyes on top of the misery in Miller's rich whiskey gaze has Jacob's stomach tying itself in knots.

“Fuck – _fuck_ , I'm the one who's sorry, Jesus fucking Christ. I-I had a knife to your throat, Peter!”

“You didn't mean it,” Miller whispers, but he doesn't even sound sure himself. He looks so young, so unsure. Wet cheeks and honey eyes and a quivering lower lip.

“You didn't mean it,” he repeats, voice somewhat rallied and lifted. Standing on his own feet, looking less like the wall is the only thing keeping him from crumbling again.

“Didn't I, though? Didn't I? In the moment I-I couldn't _stop myself_ , I—”

Miller takes a steeling breath and crosses the space between them. His heart aches as Jacob flinches at the softness of his approach, like he's the one being threatened when all Miller is armed with is his love.

He presses his hand to Jacob's throat, brushes his thumb across the stretch of skin where Jacob's knife had bitten into him. The sound Jacob makes reverberates in his skull, shakes down into the cracks in Miller's soul where he loves so greatly and so miserably that it splits him open.

“It's okay,” Miller says, voice barely audible over the roar of blood in Jacob's ears, over the scratch of Miller's thumb still dragging across Jacob's skin. His breath is warm on Jacob's cheek, brushing through his trim beard. “We're okay, Jake. Just breathe.”

“I'm _sorry_ ,” Jacob chokes. Desperate for Miller to believe him, to dispel the shadows in those warm eyes. Miller's seen his fair share of horror, three tours in eight years, but besides the traumatic first time in the Gulf, it's been mostly smooth sailing. The shit Miller's seen doesn't haunt him the way it haunts Jacob.

“Sh, I know.” Firm hands drifting to Jacob's shoulder, gently guiding him out of the shadows and into the living room. They take halting steps towards Jacob's uncomfortable couch, back back back until the lip of it hits Jacob's knees and he's forced to sit.

Miller sits on the armchair beside him, knees tucked into the arm of the chair.

The distance between them isn't great, but it might as well be oceans. Jacob feels adrift, cold without Miller pressing annoyingly close to him. Knocking their knees and elbows together like an overactive puppy desperate for attention.

The clock on the far wall _tick tick ticks_ , the only sound in the room. Jacob focuses on counting his breaths, on the clock's noisy progression, as an uncomfortable stillness settles between them.

Miller's hands brace on the arm of his chair after what feels like a lifetime, like he's moving to rise, and Jacob's heart seizes in his chest. He doesn't reach out, doesn't want to startle Miller again with his unpredictability, but he sways a little towards him and croaks, “Please don't go.”

“You'd actually have to kill me for me to leave you, Jake,” Miller tells him as he shifts forward in his seat, finally turning to face Jacob. His face is softer, eyes less haunted, and he gifts Jacob with a miserable, off-key smile, jagged like the serrated edge of a knife.

“That's not funny,” Jacob tells him miserably. This is the wrong place, wrong time for gallows humor, with the cut on Miller's throat still lazily bleeding. Long, long line of red down the curve of his throat, staining the neckband of his t-shirt.

“No, it's not. But it's true anyway.” Jacob searches his face, his eyes, and feels his heart seize again. Still fearful, still damp, but also full of conviction and support and _love_. Jacob's lightheaded with how unworthy he suddenly feels. “What kind of a friend would I be if I ducked out now? You never left me. Should've. You had no way of knowing if we'd both—”

“I couldn't. Couldn't leave you.” Voice imploring, because Jacob hadn't had a choice in the matter. He _had_ to save Miller, couldn't leave him behind.

“And _I_ can't leave _you_. Won't, Jay. Promise.”

-

Eventually Miller rises to his feet. Jacob doesn't ask him not to go with his words, but he watches him with heavy eyes as Miller putz to and fro—over and behind Jacob's couch to drape a blanket over Jacob's shoulder like he's doing triage, like Jacob is the one who should be in shock; slowly, so fucking slowly, into the hallway to shakily retrieve the knife, still dark and wet with Miller's own blood; into the kitchen and back with two glasses of cold water, only slightly quivering in his grip.

Jacob mumbles his thanks and wraps his hands around cool glass. They no longer shake, but he's got to mind the tic still twitching in his head as he carefully brings his water to his lips and takes pull after pull.

“Wanna tell me what happened?” Miller asks. Still in the armchair, but their knees are touching again. He knocks his against Jacob's as he adds, “Was it the high school? Did something happen?”

Another mouthful of water, slightly too big. He forces himself to endure the burn of it traveling down his throat, and answers with his mouth hovering above the rim of his glass. “It was fine.”

“Doesn't seem fine to me, Jake. Fine doesn't – doesn't do what you just did.”

“It was good, I was _fine_ – I...there was a kid? I dunno. Reminded me of – of John.” Jacob shifts in his seat, curling his hand tighter around his cup. It's almost empty now, and wouldn't be a colossal pain to clean up if it shattered in his grip.

Hopefully most of it would embed in the traitorous skin of his hand, the one that had wielded the carving knife. Make him bleed like he made Miller.

“John, like your little brother John?” The heartbreak in Miller's voice is unmistakable. He had always wondered if Jacob saw his long lost brothers everywhere, too attentive icy blue eyes zeroing in on familiar traits in utter strangers, but had never asked. Jacob Seed was a tough nut to crack, and Miller had only gotten this far under his skin by gradually taking what he could get.

Voluntarily talking about them without alcohol present shows how truly rattled Jacob was, is.

“Kid's gotta be the same age. Looks like I'd imagine Johnny would.” His lips curve into a sad, bitter smile. What once was a dimple fights to present itself in Jacob's scarred flesh. “Think he's being abused. It's only been one day, one _afternoon_ , but y'know, PJ. _Y'know_.”

“And you want to protect him,” Miller says.

Jacob shakes his head choppily, fighting against his tremor. “And then I ended up at a church like the one my old man used to drag us to and—I lost so much time. Don't know how I got there. Hell, how I got _here_. I-I think I'm breaking apart, PJ.”

“No, no, no, no.” Miller slinks out of his chair and onto the floor. He takes the glass out of Jacob's hand and sets it on the coffee table before pressing himself against Jacob's knees and drawing Jacob's hands into his own. They're soft and warm in Jacob's grasp, and when Miller squeezes their clasped hands all of the air squeezes from Jacob's lungs. “It's just a bad day. We all have them. Do you want me to call the VA for you?”

“Nobody else, Mills. Gonna be fine, I just...stay? Stay tonight? You can have my bed, lock the door if you have to—”

“I don't have to, Jay. I trust you. I _trust_ you, hey, hey look at me. I do, I trust you, Jacob.”

They sit in a slightly more comfortable silence for half an hour before Miller rises to his feet again. His knees are stiff from sitting on them for so long, the blood flow returning to his limbs causing them to tingle.

“I'm not locking the door, but I am going to turn in. Are you gonna be okay out here? That couch is shit and will probably mess with your muscle aches.” His arms are wrapped around his midsection, and as Jacob wearily studies him, he's not even sure if Miller's aware of the fact. Subconsciously self-soothing while putting on a brave face for Jacob.

“It's okay, Mills,” Jacob whispers.

“You've got a huge bed. If you're worried about it being gay or something...” Miller grumbles a little, mostly to himself. Nose wrinkling like he's smelt something bad. He turns his face away for a moment so Jacob can't see the conflict flashing in his eyes. “You already feel like shit, I don't want to make things worse and mess with your GWS. Not sleeping properly and body pain on top of all of the other shit—”

“More likely to get sick in the near future, I know, I know. I'm the one with the syndrome, remember?” He makes a pitiful attempt at levity, at offering his wobbly, broken smile.

“You done beatin' around the bush? C'mon, Jacob, let's go to bed.” Miller wills his cheeks not to burn so brightly, not to damn him so openly.

He's wanted something similar to this for _so long_. Longed to lay down at night next to Jacob and just enjoy the gentle intimacy of sharing a bed.

When his prayers go unanswered, his face burning like a beacon, he pivots and heads for the bedroom, hoping Jacob will follow.

He's just reached the entryway for Jacob's room when he hears the living room lamp being switched off, and then boots padding slowly toward him. Miller exhales loudly and sets about turning down the bedsheets.

“Do you have a side preference?” he calls. He manages to keep his voice even and level, even as his heart beats thunderously in his chest.

“No,” Jacob answers, and the closeness of his voice has Miller startling, knocking his knee into the wooden bedframe Miller had dragged into Jacob's life.

Jacob doesn't even laugh at him, just grunts at the sound and sits on the side of the bed to remove his boots and tuck his socks inside them.

“Is it okay if I take my jeans off?” Miller asks. As he turns to look at Jacob, he sees the other man standing again, already beginning to shed his outer layers. Fatigue pants sliding down the muscled, thick trunk of his body, down loose black boxers and solid, freckled thighs. They pool at his bare feet, and he steps out of them with ease as he simultaneously removes both his fatigue jacket then base shirt, leaving on just a tank top. “Guess that answers that question.”

“Get comfortable, Miller,” Jacob mutters, voice quiet and gruff. He keeps himself from watching Miller shuck off his own clothing by heading towards his tiny on suite to brush his teeth. “Y'can use my toothbrush.”

In the bathroom, Jacob braces his weight against the rim of the sink and allows himself a moment to breathe. He studies his reflection and frowns hard at himself, feeling stupid and lost. He should never have nosily butted into John's business, even if his gut said the boy was being abused. It was too _soon,_ they didn't have a rapport. He should've waited, maybe brought it up on Friday when all of the recruiters were present.

And this thing with Miller. Jacob shudders hard and angrily turns on the sink, wetting his toothbrush. He should've known it was PJ, should've known he'd be worried that Jacob had gone MIA on him. In the past Miller had broken into his place and waited for Jacob, but always in sight, always readily visible.

Jacob replays the entire scene over in his head as he aggressively brushes his teeth.

_Please, Jay. Please let me go._

His gums are bleeding before he knows it, foamy and pink and twinging in his mouth. The blood in his mouth's well deserved, but not enough. Wants to take one of his razors out of the medicine cabinet and break their sheaths and offer them to Miller, _blood begets blood_.

“Trying to knock them out?” Miller asks from the doorway, hip cocked against the frame. He's got his arms crossed over his stomach again, fingers buried in the soft fabric of his black tank top.

Jacob barely manages not to startle, not to jab himself in the palette with the head of his toothbrush. Instead he grunts a _no_ and spits, head down and eyes forward. He rinses his toothbrush thoroughly and then collects water into his hands to swish in his mouth.

Swallows it, mint and blood. “Here,” he says quietly, extending his toothbrush outward.

Miller studies him from the doorway for a long moment, honey warm eyes shamelessly traveling up and down Jacob's body. They make him feel small, like a bug under a microscope.

Jacob doesn't let many people get close, but here Miller is, after years and years of being there, of slipping himself under all of Jacob's protective layers to get to the wounded, bleeding center of him.

There's words building up in his throats, emotions, clogging up his airway. _I love you_ and _please let me help you be okay_ and _if only you'd_ _ **let me**_ _, Jacob_ and _I could make you so, so happy_. Miller doesn't say anything, simply swallows all of them back down. Swallows hard until his throat aches the way his heart does.

-

Jacob wakes him up at almost two AM in the throes of a nightmare. It's different from the ones Miller had to wake him up out of on Base, with his limbs flinging wildly and his nightclothes soaked with sweat.

The only parts of him damp this time are his cheeks and the front of his tank top, wet with tears. Jacob doesn't snore, sleeps kind of like the dead unless he's dreaming, but he keeps making these hiccuping, whining sounds in the back of his throat.

He tosses and turns until his body meets Miller's, and by this time Miller is up. Bleary eyes on Jacob bathed in moonlight, wet tear tracks on his cheeks gleaming silver in the bright, crisp light.

Jacob's hands grip at Miller's forearms, tugging him forward. He puts up no resistance, simply moves his body into Jacob and lets his sleeping best friend maneuver him around.

“John. John, please,” Jacob sobs, his nose and wet cheeks pressed tight into the crook of Miller's throat. Lips trembling against the column of skin, just above his stinging, scabbing gash.

Miller ignores the pain in his chest and gets comfortable pressed close to Jacob. This is the closest he's ever gotten to Jacob, spooned around him with Jacob trembling in his arms, and though it's not what he _wants—_ Miller has become a pro at taking what he can get.

-

The next time Miller wakes up, the bed beside him is cool and Jacob's fussing in the kitchen.

Miller can hear him from the bed, smell coffee and toast and eggs wafting throughout the apartment. It's early, seven or eight o'clock in the morning. He really aught to get up, needs to head home and get ready for his morning shift, but the sheets smell like _them_ and if he concentrates hard enough, he can feel Jacob in his arms still.

If this were his bed, his hand would be in his boxers. Wrapped snug around the base of his dick, then corkscrewing upward, other hand rolling his sac. Maybe teasing at his hole, legs drawn up and bent. Thinking of Jacob, Jacob's big hands and thick, freckled thighs and the scratch of his red beard against Miller's sensitive, tanned skin. Imagining him with his lips around Miller's dick, or Miller's legs draped around his waist, over his shoulders, as Jacob pounds into him.

It's not his bed, though, not his sheets. Jacob's not his boyfriend, not _his_ in any way that entitles him to those thoughts.

Miller squeezes at his morning wood pitifully before shambling to his feet, heading toward the bathroom

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter spontaneously deleted??? welp ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


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